Corporations and other legal entities offer stocks to raise capital through the issuance and distribution of shares. Investors purchase shares through a stock market in which stocks and other securities are traded. These stock markets include, as well-known examples, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). Shares are purchased, held, and sold by third-party facilitators and grouped in portfolios of stocks and other securities. Most stock markets are managed and operated by a corporation or a mutual fund organization called a stock exchange, which often serves as a trading agent. These exchanges also create indexes such as the S&P 500 that groups 500 well-known companies listed in the NASDAQ or the NYSE. These stock exchanges assign a unique stock symbol to each corporation trading shares. For example, Microsoft Corporation is assigned the symbol MSFT, International Business Machine the symbol IBM, and The 3M Company the symbol MMM. Most stock exchanges or index providers rate stocks to guide investors in evaluating the worth of the stock at a precise moment in time based on contemplated future performance of the stock and/or the associated corporation. These service providers also provide financial analysis of the listed corporations and offer tools for the management of investment portfolio. For instance, S&P uses a STAR rating system, indicating the probability that a stock may be sold and depreciate in the future. The S&P STAR rating ranges from one star (strong sales contemplated) to five stars (weak sales contemplated).
Stock trades generally revolve around the purchase of a specific stock at a Purchase Price (PP) and the resale of the stock at a different sale price (SP) after market fluctuations have occurred, raising or lowering the current price (CP). Traders generally profit (P) if the resale price is higher than the purchase price shown by the equation P=SP−PP. A trader incurs a loss if the stock is sold at a price lower than the purchase price. Another way to quantify a profit from the sale of a stock in the present is P=CP−PP. A primary objective is to benefit from a transaction by selling stock at higher prices than the purchase price. Indexes are potential indicators of average and median values of CP for the entire market.
Over the years, secondary trading instruments have been developed by stock markets analysts to regulate and protect portfolios of stocks from excessive market fluctuations. One of these instruments is known as a “call option,” or more simply, a “call.” Another instrument is called a “put option,” or more simply, a “put.” The call and the put are options that may be traded alongside stocks and may be become part of a portfolio of assets even if they do not represent actual shares in stock. A call is a financial contract between the owner of a stock and a potential purchaser stating that the potential purchaser has a right, but not an obligation based on jurisdictions, to buy a stock from the owner at an agreed price. The call is reasonably associated with an expiration date called a strike date (SD), a date at which the contact expires. Generally, the agreed price of a call is called the bid price (BP) and corresponds to a value at which the parties agree to sell the stock on or before the strike date. A BP is normally higher than the CP of the stock on the stock market. The price paid for the call is a “premium” and is fixed between the parties. For example, a buyer holding $30 in cash can buy a share of stock with a CP of $30 and hope to profit if the CP increases. If a SP of $35 is obtained after as SD of 10 days, the buyer will have made a profit of $5. Once the buyer is in possession of the stock, he or she must wait patiently for fluctuations in the market to change the CP of his purchased stock. A second solution is to purchase a call from a third party in possession of a stock. Market conditions can dictate that the stock with a CP of $30 has a premium of $1 associated with a BP of $33 at an SD ten days later. In essence, the buyer pays $1 for the right to purchase the stock at the BP on the SD. Profit in that second option is only made if the CP at the SD is higher than the BP plus the premium. The profit from the trade of a call (Pc) is given by the following equations:Pc{SD}=[CP{SD}−BP]−Premium$1=Pc{SD}=[$35−$33]−$1
The trade of a put option contract works in a similar way. The put has an analogous premium, for example $1 relating to a SD also in the future. At the SD, a trader is given the right to sell at a BP, for example at $27, a value that will hopefully be lower than the CP, which may have lowered to $25, by way of example. The profit (Ps) in that case would then be given by the following equations:Ps{SD}=[BP−CP{SD}]−premium$1=Ps{SD}=[$27−$25]−$1
What is substantially different between a Pc and a Ps is the necessity to invest only BP instead of PP in order to obtain a profit. In the above examples, a PP of $30 would return a P of $5 or a profit of 17% while a BP of $1 would return a Pc or Ps of $1 or a 100% return on investment. Trading in call and put contracts is regarded as a risky investment because of the leverage effect between PP and Premium, and also because the CP may not reach the BP on the SD, which results in the premium being lost. Gain is achieved only if the CP reaches a value above the BP for a call and under the SP for a put above premium.
Other instruments exist to mitigate the risks associated with call and put contracts. A “covered call” (CC) is the concurrent use of a stock trade in a company and a put option contract relating to the stock in the portfolio. The covered call corresponds to securing the ownership in a stock and selling to a second party at a premium the profits associated with the situation where the stock reaches a high value above a BP. For example, the owner of 100 shares in International Business Machine (IBM) with a CP or PP of $70 per share may sell an option to a second party, fixing the BP at $80 per share for a premium of $2 per share at a SD. This CC corresponds to foregoing any potential benefits if the CP of IBM is higher than the BP at the SD in exchange for an immediate return of $2 per share. On an annualized basis, if the owner repeats this operation several times (N), in way of example 3 times in a year corresponding to a SD of four months, and the CP of the stock changes to $73 at the end of the year, an annualized return (AR) for the CC can be computed as follows:AR=100*[P+{Premium*N}]/PP=[{CP−PP}+{Premium*N}]/PP12.9%=100*[{73−70}+{2*3}]/70=100*9/70
Whereas the benefit from the trade of the stock corresponds to 4.3% of the AR, the benefit from the three successive put contracts during the trade period is 8.6%. The benefit from the put contract associated with the underlying stock trade can be quantified alternatively as a downward protection (DP), a profit from the put contract that may be used to compensate for a light drop in the CP of the stock when compared to the initial PP. In the above example, the DP is 8.6%, and indicating that if the CP falls as low as $64, then the put contract protects the stock owner and places his overall investment at zero.
The downside to the covered call is the obligation to sell the stock if it performs at or above the expectations fixed in the option contract. In the above example, if the stock price reaches $80 per share at any time during the three put contract SDs, or any moment during the trade, the stock owner is forced to sell the stock to the contract holder at $10 above the CP. While this situation corresponds to a positive benefit from the trade, the stock owner generally wishes to maintain the position and is forced to purchase the stock at the CP and not the BP at a loss. What is needed is a tool designed to help stock traders to determine optimal CC trades that increase the AR while minimizing losses associated with a repositioning after an undesirable sale.
In yet another trade scenario, a trader may not wish to pay the PP of a stock in order to undertake a CC. In that case, a substantial risk is linked with the rapid increase of the CP and the need to sell a stock at a price that is not in the portfolio of an investor. The investor would have to purchase the stock at CP and sell it at the SP, suffering a loss. One possible solution is a hedge trade (HT) where a trader initiated a put option contract on a stock that is not owned in a portfolio but instead acquired a call contract with a longer SDc to cover any put option exercised against the portfolio. A HT is defined as the concurrent ownership of a short-lived put option contract on a stock and the ownership of a longer-lived buy option contract designed to be exercised prematurely if the put option contract is also exercised at or before the SDc. HT profits (Pht) are calculated by adding the different Premiums of the successive contracts minus the prices paid as premium on the call contract if no forced trades are initiated correlated to the price recovered when the call contract is exercised or replaced by a second call contract with a new SDc. By way of example, hedge trading with the above put contract of IBM at a premium of $2 for four months for a BPs of $80, and the purchase of an associated call contract designed to remain active during the period at the lowest value possible may correspond to buying at a premium of $40 a call with a BPc of $28. The advantage of taking on such a low position is to ensure that the call, on a stock with a CP of $70 is not likely to be exercised, and can be exercised with the best value at any time. The high BPc of the call is offset by the actual redemption value of the contract when the put is exercised. In the above example, the Pht if the CP remains within BPc and BPs, and where a position drops from $70 to $67 while remaining between $80 and $30, and not forcing a sale corresponds to a profit of:Pht=(premium*N)−premium call+(CP−BPc)$5=Pht=$2*3−$28+($67−$40)
The hedge trader receives $6 from the three put contracts and pays $28 to be able to exercise a call contract at $40 that is worth $67 on the market for a total benefit of $5. In the situation where the put contract is exercised by the buyer (where the CP rises above the BP at SDc), then the buy option must be exercised, in this example during the second period of Put contract (N=2), and the profit is as follows:Pht=(premium*N)−premium call+(BPs−BPc)$16=Pht=($2*2)−$28+($80−$40)
Where the stock CP is $85 above the BPc of $80 for a stock that initially went from a $70 position to a $85 position. What is needed is a device, method, and/or report that allows an optimal covered call to be determined based on the optimal covered call contract available within these and other parameters. What is also needed is a report, medium, and/or system able to determine the optimal combination of call contracts and put contracts for a selected stock and for a list of stocks in a portfolio. What is also needed is a rating system that allows covered call traders and hedge traders to quickly analyze, within a unique report, what trades are likely to improve the stock portfolio returns and performances.
While a series of specific examples and terms are given illustratively to help with the comprehension and the definition of the different terms, it is understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that flexibility in the terminology and method of application of these concepts may be contemplated based on the rapid change in the technology and the nature of stock and option trading.